Where lime yellows, and the birch takes on her pale 

 the Forest gold, and oak and sycamore and ash slowly 

 Murmurs, transmute their green multitudes into a new 

 throng clad in russet or dull red or sunset- 

 orange. The forest is full of loveliness : in 

 her dusky ways faint azure mists gather. 

 When the fawn leaps through the fern it is no 

 longer soundlessly : there is a thin dry rustle, 

 as of a dove brushing swiftly from its fastness 

 in an ancient yew. One may pass from covert 

 to covert, from glade to glade, and find the 

 Secret just about to be revealed . . . some- 

 where beyond the group of birches, beside that 

 oak it may be, just behind that isolated thorn. 

 But it is never quite overtaken. It is as 

 evasive as moonlight in the hollows of waves. 

 When present, it is already gone. When 

 approached, it has the unhasting but irretriev- 

 able withdrawal of the shadow. In October 

 this bewildering evasion is still more obvious, 

 because the continual disclosure is more near 

 and intimate. When, after autumns of rain 

 and wind, or the sudden stealthy advent of 

 nocturnal frosts, a multitude of leaves becomes 

 sere and wan, and then the leaves strew every 

 billow of wind like clots of driven foam, or fall 

 in still wavering flight like flakes of windless 

 snow, then, it is surely then that the great 

 surprise is imminent, that the secret and furtive 



6 



